Tuesday, April 7, 2015

A to Z of Vampires, Farkaskoldus

Today we travel to Hungary and enter a part of the world over run with vampires, vampire legends and stories. It is my pleasure to introduce the Farkaskoldus ("Far-kiss-ole-dis").

This creature is a revenant type vampire. Which means it was dead and now it rises from it's grave. As opposed to spiritual, psychic or astral vampires. It is also something of a cross between a werewolf and vampire. I have read some material that suggests it is what happens to a werewolf when they die and come back as a vampire.

In death they still resemble werewolves. They can shift to a wolf-like form.

They are equipped with deadly claws and a bite, but their preferred prey is a baby. Human babies typically only have 2-3 points of Constitution and the Farkaskoldus drains 1 per night. If there are number of unexplained deaths among babies then the hunt for Farkaskoldus must begin.

They can be found in their coffins (which they must return too by daylight) with their abdomens distended and full of blood. They will also show no signs of decay.

The Farkaskoldus is a viscous vampiric monster. It survives solely on the blood of newborns and babies younger than 6 months. It must drain at least 3 Con points per each full moon or be forever destroyed.
Farkaskoldus are affected by all the same things that affect vampires; holy symbols, garlic, holy water. Additionally silver coated weapons also do +1 of damage.
To destroy one of these creatures one must find it in it's grave, cut off the head and burn the body to ashes.

Oh look, a Hungarian connection... :D Farkaskoldus (Fahr-kash-kohl-doosh) literally means "wolf beggar" and people usually believed it was a shepherd or some other kind of poor person who could turn into a wolf and back (or in some cases was cursed into being a wolf by a witch). Just a side note: Hungarian folklore doesn't actually have vampires. The surrounding countries do, so there was some cross-fertilization, but we are more of the witches-and-wizards kinda people. ;)